Now, we see what Feingold meant when he said he looked forward to questioning John Bolton -- he was looking forward to making him explain why he was absent from a key meeting on Darfur that every other important UN ambassador attended.
It seems that Bolton would rather spend his time speaking for right-wing think tanks than actually getting out and doing the hard work of solving the world's problems.
FEINGOLD: Getting a U.N. peacekeeping mission into Darfur has been a high-level U.S. priority and I just want to ask why you didn't travel with other Security Council members to Darfur when they went to Sudan earlier this year. Is that some indication of the importance of the issue to you? Could you say a bit about that?
BOLTON: Yeah, I had long before the timing of that mission was scheduled made a personal commitment in the United Kingdom. A lot of people had gone to a lot of effort to put that in place and I didn't feel that I could break the commitment as a matter of my personal word. Instead, I sent our alternative representative to the Security Council, Ambassador Sanders, who was with the delegation through its entire trip in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Chad.
FEINGOLD: This thing was a personal commitment of a business nature. This was not a personal commitment in the sense of your own family.
BOLTON: Right, that's correct.
The first thing that is obvious from this testimony is that John Bolton is undermining his own president's committment to providing peacekeepers to Sudan. Either that, or Bush is lying and he is saying one thing about Sudan and doing another. Either way, this conference on Sudan was not important enough for Bolton to attend -- instead, he would rather be spending time with his right-wing cronies.
This is very much similar ot the behavior of Bush -- he routinely shuts people out of his speeches and appearences who don't agree with each and every one of his policies. And don't ask them to develop an awareness of human suffering -- they completely shut themselves out of any kind of awareness of that. This explains, for example, why Bush ran and hid while people were dying in New Orleans.
From this, it is obvious that John Bolton does not think stopping genocide ranks high on his priority list. Instead, whenever the topic of suffering comes up, he runs and hides, just like his master.
We know that George Bush only rewards those who show absolute loyalty to him. So, the only reason that George Bush would have nominated Bolton again is that Bolton was doing exactly what George Bush wanted him to do. Bush thinks genocide is not important, so Bolton makes sure that things do not move too rapidly on that front. Bush wants to bully other foreign leaders, so he wants to make sure to appoint a bully to do his dirty work.
And regarding his comments of his UK engagement being of a business nature, any reasonable businessperson would be more than happy to excuse someone who is actively employed in the work of stopping genocide. Things like this come up all the time. What we have is a UN ambassasdor who has a twisted sense of priorities and who can't tell right from wrong.
One wonders why George Bush would not think stopping genocide to be that important on his list. I suggest that that reason is simple -- he wants to create states of perpetual limited warfare so that he can keep his people in line and generate record profits for his oil allies. Elsewhere in the news, Exxon and Conoco are both reporting record profits for this quarter. So, it is clear that Bush favors bolstering big oil over stopping genocide -- driving up gas prices in the process and increasing our dependence on foreign oil. We know the oil markets are susceptible to any kind of political instability.
There is another reason why Bush would not want a stable Sudan -- a stable Sudan would sell huge quantities of oil to China, meaning that they would quench their thirst for oil and become stronger as a result. Given the utter contempt that Bush showed for the Chinese leader when he grabbed his shirt, I suggest that another reason Bush does not care about genocide is so that he can deprive China of any oil, meaning they will be unable to compete with us economically in the long run.
Therefore, all of the antics of Bolton in the UN reflect back on Bush. It is possible for us to tell what the real priorities of the Bush administration are through the actions of his subordinates. If he had really been interested in stopping genocide in Sudan, he would have gone out of his way to personally demonstrate his committment by forcing Bolton to attend this meeting. But the fact that he sent his deputy is telling. People want to hear what the boss has to say in any organization. On a team, players want to hear the head coach's voice, not some assistant. But Bolton does not think genocide is important enough, so he didn't go.
And furthermore, this is one more example of the failure of conservatism as an ideology. Conservatism cannot be bothered with details -- it is focused on finding the easy answers, like religious fundamentalism. The fact that John Bolton cannot be bothered to acquaint himself with the details of the crisis in Sudan means that he cannot be trusted to do the hard work necessary to put a stop to it.
We also see a case of selective morality with Bolton. Bolton claims that he gave his word to attend this conference and that he has to keep his word. But this is a classic case of selective morality -- apparently, it is OK for the President to give his word that the US will do what they can on Darfur and then appoint a UN ambassador who undermines the effort. Apparently, it is OK for the President to talk about wanting to restore civility to Washington and then bully the Chinese leader and grope the German leader.
The only time morality is important for the Bush administration is to excuse other wrongs or when it applies to the other side. I am sure Bush has a similar excuse for not exercising a leadership role over Katrina -- he gave his word he would come over and strum the guitar with the country singer, visit John McCain, and give a talk about Social Security.